


tell me what do you call a father with no son

by Riana1



Category: Pacific Rim (2013)
Genre: Gen, Grief/Mourning, the aftermath of saving the world
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-08-27
Updated: 2013-08-27
Packaged: 2017-12-24 19:04:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/943538
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Riana1/pseuds/Riana1
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Herc Hansen and the aftermath.</p>
            </blockquote>





	tell me what do you call a father with no son

This is nothing that you dreamed.

Not in your worst nightmare, not in the waking up in a cold sweat with an afterimage of Sydney burning on your eyelids and your wife’s name vibrating on your vocal cords did you ever dream of this.

Not that your son would die.

But you would outlive him.

You have been a Jaeger pilot since the dawn of the program to its waning dusk, you have battled monsters out of the deep for the salvation of countless seaside cities, you have Drifted with your son and learned more about his sexual proclivities than any father should, you are a soldier, you are an Australian, youneverplannedtooutliveyourson.

***  
You do not so much shake out Stacker's shoes as borrow them. 

Stacker left an itemized list for you, cross-referenced and confirmed for a continuation of the Shatterdome and the ugly aftermath that comes from finding you have a future and budget concerns are one of them.

There are footnotes.

(One of them reads 'Keep moving, one foot after another until you come out the other side' and you nearly ruin the computer until you realize that Stacker never meant this for you but for Mako. You make a copy of every one and leave it in a folder on your desk. You call up Raleigh and give it to him, you not sure if avoiding Mako outside of official meetings is cowardice or caution- mostly you think it is a courtesy to keep from bumping up against your shared sutures in shapes of parent and child.)

***  
You don't cry at the service.

(You breakdown in the privacy of your bunk after you realize you are out of dog food and you don't remember what Chinese knock-off Max likes, only Chuck found it when you got to the Shatterdome and never told you where, your son is gone and you will never find out where he shopped, your son is gone and you will never have another conversation with him, your son is gone your son is gone yourson-- Max licks all your tears away and you hold on to him until your arms knot and cramp.)

You solve the problem by letting the dog eat off your plate.

***  
You have wild fantasies about Chuck's old flames.

Swelling bellies and babes at the breast- bright- eyed girls holding out your grand-baby. You keep baby catalogs on the bottom of your desk drawer and tell yourself it is for Choi. You hire investigators in three different countries to stalk down your son's old lovers and pay them to ransack garbage cans for DNA to test.

(You are fool enough to leave your private e-mail open around Raleigh and sit in silence as a boy half your age tells you not to chase that rabbit down that hole. He gives a subset of your PR team the task of combing through letters and paternity claims with a standing order for legal to offer DNA testing to all claimants and to leave it alone, Herc. If they find a match, they will come to you, but don't spend yourself chasing ghosts.

You nearly punch the boy.

You don't. You see him with Mako. The care he gives when he guards her room on the press tour, letting her have her space when the world is biting to carve her up- Tokyo's Daughter, Savior Of The World, all her courage and grace and grief into a 30 second sound-bite live at 10.

You aren't so far gone to not recognize a helping hand when it is offered.) 

***

You live. You work. You come home to Max. You live. You work. You come home to Max. You live. You work. You come home to Max.

Sometimes you sleep.

Not often enough.

***

The techs call it ghosting. The phantom connection of a neural bridge outside of the cockpit. The wash of a Drift that never dies over time or distance- you remember brushing your teeth and spitting the acidic aftertaste of oranges because Chuck was sweet talking one of the cooks into letting him munch on a complete bag of California's finest.

Today these are the moments you live for.

Sometimes all that you live for.


End file.
